


The Debt Owed

by Golden_Moon_Huntress



Series: The Debt Owed [1]
Category: The Gifted (TV 2017)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:33:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24640939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Golden_Moon_Huntress/pseuds/Golden_Moon_Huntress
Summary: There’s always a cost to playing God.Lauren and Andy are paying the price.
Relationships: Andrea von Strucker & Andreas von Strucker, Andy Strucker and Andreas von Strucker, Lauren Strucker & Andrea von Strucker, Lauren Strucker & Andy Strucker
Series: The Debt Owed [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1781644
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	1. Lauren I

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note  
> I do not own The Gifted.

The first time it happened was that day in the car.

Lauren could remember seeing the truck coming towards them, how bright and blinding the headlights were.

And then she wasn’t her anymore.

Or rather, she was and she wasn’t both at the same time.

It was like remembering something that never happened, or trying to look at something underwater through a cracked periscope. For just a moment, no longer than a split second, she was a younger girl wearing a black dress - she could even feel the rough black material – staring down the barrel of a gun.

And then she was her again.

Or rather, she was and she wasn’t both at the same time.

But she knew what to do.

She knew what to do.

By an instinct she didn’t know she had she threw up a shield and redirected the truck just enough that it missed them. Their mom pulled onto the shoulder and sat shaking at the wheel.

Lauren shook for a very different reason.

She sat in her room that night and tried to sketch out a picture of the memory, but she wasn’t like Andy. She was no artist. At the back of her mind she could still see the hatred and loathing in the soldier’s eyes, the fear on his face – and the American flag pin on his collar.

It only took a moment of googling to confirm her sudden brainwave.

The uniform the soldier had been wearing was from World War Two, the American army uniform from that era.

If he had pulled the trigger, she would never know.

She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

Except she would learn, barely a month later, when a thunderstorm hit and lightning flashed outside her window.

Because suddenly she wasn’t her anymore.

She was sheltering in a cave, barely that, trying to stay huddled on the remaining patch of dry stone as rain hammered down inches away. Lightning flashed down so close she could have reached out and touched it. She wasn’t alone; though she couldn’t see the boy she knew he was there.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “They’ll regret this. History will remember our names.”

Then she was back in her room, sat in her chair, warm and dry and safe.

Lauren closed the curtains.

The third time she was at school, and her teacher had just shown a video of buildings collapsing in an earthquake.

Then, for the third time, Lauren was the girl.

And, for the first time, the girl was her.

She saw a building crumbling under some unseen power, except it wasn’t crumbling, it simply… no longer was. Lauren wasn’t sure how to describe it.

“This is the gift we bring,” said the girl and the boy she now knew somehow was her brother, “this is what they deserve,” and the voice was hers.

Her classmates gave her some very strange looks when she was looking at the video again.

She couldn’t tell anyone.

She could never tell anyone.

Not about her mutant abilities, and certainly not about the memories that didn’t belong to her.

She tried to research, but she couldn’t really because she had no starting point, no names or landmarks, not even a description because she _was_ the girl, she had never seen her. She didn’t even definitively know the dates.

What she could do was practise.

She did it in her room with the curtains closed tight, or sometimes in the garage when only her mom was home and upstairs.

The problem was, the more she practised, the more she trained, the more she used her powers, the more she remembered. She threw up a shield and she saw a flashed image of one stopping bullets, she lifted a glass and she saw a flashed image of one holding a gun, she pushed herself to hold a shield and she saw an image of men being crushed against a wall, she formed a shield flat and had a flashed image of jumping to stand on one (which she did actually try, it was pretty cool). Bit by bit, piece by piece, more and more of her was becoming the girl and more and more of the girl was becoming her.

And it terrified her.

But she couldn’t tell anyone.

Andy she dismissed off hand, her mom was terrified of mutants, her dad…

Her dad was always talking about how dangerous mutants were. He put people like her in jail.

Her friends wouldn’t understand. Their problems… they all seemed so petty and small now, compared to her own, and especially compared to the girl’s. Lauren smiled and laughed in all the right places because it was fun, but there was always part of her that had to keep control of her powers and another part that had to stop the girl from speaking when she spoke.

The first time she started really thinking about Andy was that day in the park.

Lauren would realise that, eventually, and then feel terrible for it, wondering how selfish she could be. But Andy had always been a bit of a loner, even when they played Police and Mutants as kids (she was always the police, oh the irony).

It had been a long time since they just enjoyed time together as a family. Her dad worked such long hours now, Andy shut himself away in his room, and since that only left her and mom… well, Lauren would often prefer to spend time training. So family time was at an all time low.

Then came that day.

There seemed no real harm in trying Andy’s stupid trick. It couldn’t be any more dangerous than her powers. Of course, if she fell she’d have to let herself fall (which was tricky these days, the girl wanted to just throw up a shield and catch herself) and probably get some bruises for the effort, but she should spend more time with her family, so she tried it.

She fell.

Andy grabbed her hand.

And she was the girl again, stronger than ever this time, with her brother’s hand in hers. Power sang in her blood and she could feel it singing in his, roaring between them. The world was nothing.

_Fenris._

She fell.

It left bruises, but Lauren had the feeling that Andy letting go out of surprise was the best outcome for literally everyone.

Because if she had been the girl, well and truly, that meant the girl was her, and she had come so close to turning that power on the entire park and the buildings around it and reducing them to nothing but ash. Their mom and dad, the others at the cookout, the innocent people in their homes.

They weren’t mutants.

They hated them.

This world hated them.

The girl wanted them all dead.

Lauren rolled over and threw up.

Andy told their parents she was sick and their dad took her home early. Lauren crawled under her bed, curled up in a ball and sobbed at the prospect at what might have been.

That was where Andy found her three hours later when he got home.

He knocked on her door first. “How you feeling?”

Lauren still couldn’t bring herself to answer.

“Can I come in?”

She didn’t reply, so she guessed he took that as a yes and came in anyway. It took him a moment to find her, and then he laid down on the floor to look at her. “What are you doing?”

“Go away Andy,” she rasped, and the voice was hers and the girl’s at the same time.

“Are you okay?”

“I said go away.”

“Do you need me to get mom or dad?”

“No. I need to be alone.”

“Is this about what happened in the park?”

Lauren gazed at him. “You felt that too?”

“Yeah.”

She wet her lips. “Andy, do you ever… Do you ever remember things that never happened to you?”

“You mean like déjà vu?”

“No, I mean like having memories that aren’t yours.”

He stared at her. “In the park…” he started, and then stopped as though not sure how to finish.

“Yeah,” she whispered.

They didn’t say anything else.

They didn’t need to.

She knew.

And maybe somewhere deep inside him, he knew too.

That day seemed to trigger something, because she dreamt as the girl that night, destroying a theatre building with all those inside it. She threw up again when she woke and convinced her mom she was still sick and to let her stay home, but she dreamt as the girl the next night and the night after that.

_Andrea_ , the boy, her brother, called her.

She had a name.

Putting ‘Andrea’ into google brought up millions of results. ‘Andrea, mutant’ brought up less, but still recent ones, mostly related to a mutant in South Carolina called Andrea who destroyed a parking garage with some sort of sonic ability. Lauren typed in ‘Andrea, mutant, second world war’ and found one result.

_History will remember us_ indeed.

The result was an archived newspaper article from the nineteen fifties about the destruction of a cinema in France. Not just destruction though. The article said it was just… gone. Completely… gone. Along with everyone who had been inside it.

The authorities were attributing it to Andreas and Andrea Von Strucker, the mutant terrorist twins.

Lauren thought of that day in the park.

They could have destroyed… everything.

And worse.

She had kinda wanted to.

She never told Andy, but she did make an effort to talk to him more and spend time with him. He never asked, but he seemed to accept her company. Lauren wondered if sometimes he felt sorry for her and what teenage year old girl spent her time hanging out with her baby brother anyway?

He was fifteen.

If he was a mutant…

He showed her his pictures sometimes. Earlier ones were often guns and knives and blood, but recently he seemed to have switched to wolves.

The biggest one was blazoned across the front of his sketchbook with the word _‘FENRIS’_ in stylized letters above it. Lauren gazed at it as it lay on the kitchen table one day and traced the words with one finger.

“The wolf,” Andy said quietly from behind her, but Lauren wasn’t really seeing him or the picture, she was seeing a group of men crumble to dust in front of her eyes.

_“We are Fenris,”_ said the girl and the boy, and their voices were one. Andy frowned.

“Are you okay?”

Lauren snatched her hand from the sketchbook.

“Was that… like at the park?”

“None of your business,” Lauren snapped and swept out.

Andy came to her later, which, to be frank, neither of them expected.

“Lauren?”

“Mm?”

“What’s Fenris?”

“We are,” said the girl unhelpfully.

“You mean… what happened at the park? That feeling, the light?”

Lauren blinked and shook her head. “What? No- Well, yes. Sorry Andy, that wasn’t me.”

He frowned. “Then who was it?”

“It’s… complicated.”

“Then uncomplicated it.” He sat down on her stool. “Talk to me, please, or I’m going to tell mom what’s been going on.”

“What? No, Andy, you can’t!”

“Then talk to me! Lauren, please! I’m worried about you! Talking about remembering things that never happened, now this about Fenris and the wolf- Lauren, you said we. If this involves me too then I have a right to know.”

“Andy,” she whispered, and then she stopped.

She’d dismissed Andy offhand.

She’d never thought about it.

But he cared!

Lauren closed her eyes. _Keep your feet together and jump in,_ Andrea said to someone she couldn’t quite see yet.

“Andy,” she said again. “Does the name Andreas Von Strucker mean anything to you?”

The name meant nothing to Andy. Lauren told him about her dreams, carefully leaving out any mentions of mutanthood, though Andy did bring up the question anyway. It took another five months for everything to connect in her head. She dreamt of the girl every night. Sometimes Lauren was unsure which name to answer to. When she heard the name ‘Andrea’ shouted in the hallway at school she had to bite her tongue not to answer. More and more the girl spoke when she did. But she wasn’t so much a girl now, or at least, not always. The memories were fuzzy, sometimes little more than misty images, torn pictures seen through a cracked screen, but bit by bit Lauren was piecing them together, sketching a rough timeline in her notebook. There was a child now in some of her dreams, a boy with dark hair like Andy and hazel eyes like their father. _Otto_ , the boy, her brother, _Andreas_ , called him.

_Otto Von Strucker_ , Lauren wrote in her notebook when she woke, and then stared hard at the name. No. No. No. But it had to be, it was too close, too bold, to be a coincidence.

“Oh you stupid little boy,” Andrea whispered, tracing Lauren’s finger over the page. “What have you done?”


	2. Lauren II

Going to the school dance seemed a good idea at the time. As did taking Andy with her.

It was not.

None of it was a good idea.

She was dancing with Jack, who might have been her boyfriend if she’d said yes to his offer of a date all those months ago before the girl jumped in and said hell no, when she saw Andy getting dragged aside. The part of her that was her said stay and dance, but the part that was the girl said go after him.

And the girl won.

It was the first time, and Lauren told herself it would be the last unless they agreed on something, but she began to push her way through the crowd.

She was still too late.

The gym began to shake and parts of it warp.

Her heart sang.

_Andreas_.

She wasn’t alone.

She wasn’t alone!

He was here, he was with her!

Lauren laughed in spite of herself. Those near her frowned and gave her disapproving looks, which was probably fair. Around her students were screaming and scrambling for the exits while she fought against the flow, throwing up a shield to stop a piece of ceiling about to come down on herself and several others.

The girl saw a wooden beam hurtling down towards her.

Lauren reminded herself it wasn’t there.

She shoved her way into the shower room and found Andy in the midst of destruction, screaming like he was dying.

_He was hurt_ , howled the girl, _they had hurt him_!

They must pay.

No. That wasn’t her thought.

“Andreas,” she screamed before she knew what she was doing. “Andy! Andy it’s me! Look at me! It’s me, it’s me!”

“Lauren? Lauren?”

“Let’s go!” She grabbed him, wrapping her arms around him and pulled him to his feet.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“You’ve nothing to be sorry for,” said the girl before Lauren could shut her up. “They deserved it.”

She led him out to the car and pushed him into the passenger seat, blinking to try and clear the images of a theatre disintegrating around her as she climbed into the driver’s seat and turned the key in the ignition.

“I couldn’t stop,” Andy was saying. “I couldn’t stop, I couldn’t stop.”

“Do you remember the soldiers?” Lauren asked. Andy stopped and stared at her. Something like confusion passed over his face.

“How do you-”

“That’s a yes then.”

Andreas.

He was here with her.

She wasn’t alone anymore.

Andrea Von Strucker would have known what to do, how to be brave, but Lauren Strucker was scared and took them home, where she finally told her mom about her mutant abilities.

“Is it mind reading?” Andy asked, maybe finally managing to pull himself together a little.

“No,” Lauren replied. “Forcefields.”

“But- you knew about the soldiers.”

“What soldiers?” asked their mom. Which was when Sentinel Services arrived.

The girl screamed for her to grab Andy’s hand and she did before she realised what the girl wanted and dropped it again. Instead they escaped in the car, the girl helping to deflect the bullets as they pulled out of their street probably for the last time.

“Lauren?” Andy whispered as they drove.

“Mm?”

“How did you know about the soldiers?”

“My dreams. Remembering things that never happened to you. They happened to someone else.”

Except now she wasn’t so sure any more.

“The Von Struckers. That day in the park.”

“Yes.” Lauren fumbled for her notebook, which she had started taking everywhere with her a long time ago, it was too precious to lose, and opened it to the first page. “This is what I know.”

They stopped at a payphone so mom could ring dad. Lauren stared at her figure out the window. Slowly, deliberately, she hit the button to lock the doors and climbed into the driver’s seat.

“What are you doing?” Andy asked.

“Looking for answers,” Lauren replied.

Their mom screamed as they pulled onto the road and Lauren tried not to watch her trying to run after them.

“So where are we going?”

“To the only person who can give us them.”

_… three months ago…_

“Dad?” Lauren asked.

“Yes love?”

“What happened to your dad?”

Her dad glanced at her. She was sat at the kitchen table, papers scattered in front of her.

“What do you want to know that for?”

“It’s for a school project.”

“He left when I was young.”

“Do you know where he is now?”

“I suppose you’re old enough now to know and not go doing anything stupid.” He took a seat at the table. “My dad was a difficult man.

He lived for his work. As a child I got… incredibly sick. I almost died. He never even visited me.”

_That was her boy._

“I haven’t spoken to him in years. He lives up in Chattanooga.”

Lauren scrawled it down in her notebook. “Thanks dad.”

_… three months later…_

They arrived in Chattanooga around midnight and spent a few hours taking turns to nap in the car. In the morning they ditched it just outside the city and walked in. It took them a while of asking around and searching addresses online and address books from a few old, battered phone boxes, but at last they got an address. Otto Strucker now ran a small antiques store on the outskirts.

“So what are we going to say to this guy when we do walk in?” Andy asked. Lauren gazed at the shop.

“I don’t know.”

Maybe Andrea and Andreas would help them with that.

“Come on. We can’t just stay here like sitting ducks.”

A bell rang as they entered the store. An elderly man was sat at the counter with a mechanical clock in front of him.

_‘You’ve got old,’_ was the first thing the girl wanted to say to him. 

Lauren decided not to go with that.

“It’s not often I see people your age in here,” said the man. My Otto. “Of course, not often I see anyone in here.”

Andy blinked furiously and rubbed at his eyes with one hand, shaking his head crossly. Lauren decided to cut to the chase. “You’re Otto Von Strucker?”

He fixed her with a hard stare. “I’m afraid not. You’ll find no one of that name here young lady. You’re in the wrong place.”

She had to look for it, but she could see it, something about the eyes and the mouth. My boy. My Otto. “No. I don’t think we are.”

He stepped out from behind the counter. “Listen young lady, I don’t know who sent you here, but I can’t help you.”

Andrea smiled. _There we are. My baby, my boy, my Otto. There’s your fighting spirit._

“I’m Lauren Strucker. This is my brother Andy.”

He frowned, looking at her a little harder. _He looks just like his father when he does that._

“Reed Strucker is our father.”

He seemed to fold in on himself, taking a hard step back. “You- You’re Reed’s children?”

“Yes.” Lauren held a hand out, enclosing one of the parts for his clock in a sturdy shield. He jumped and shied away, both from it and her. 

“No- No.”

“I think you’re the only person in the world that can help us.”

He showed them up to his flat and brought them tea and toast when Andy mentioned they hadn’t eaten. 

“I’m sorry if we scared you,” Lauren said, and she meant it, even if the part of her that was Andrea was scorning at what Otto had become. _Wasting his gift, squandering his talent, stupid little boy._ “We just needed to make you pay attention.”

_He never was very good at that._

“What I don’t understand,” he said slowly, “is how you two knew. I never told anyone, not a soul, about my past. Not even Ellen. How could you possibly know?”

“You didn’t change your name enough Toto,” Andrea said silkily. “Removing part of it doesn’t hide you from people who know what they’re looking for.”

Otto leapt to his feet. His hands began glowing faintly gold. _See, you can’t hide it._ Andrea smiled. “I thought you were smarter than that.”

“Lauren!” Andy hissed. “You’re doing it again!”

She jerked back and slammed her head against the chair, pressing one hand to her temple. “Sorry. She’s been… loud ever since the prom. I think she’s happy. Or gloating.” 

Or both.

The glow was still spreading up Otto’s arms. _Does the little boy really think he can fight us? Us?_ Andy turned to him. “Mr Strucker, my sister has… flashes. Like visions of some sort, memories. From your mother. That’s how we found you; that’s why we came here.”

“I’m no expert by a long shot, but that did not sound like a vision. You sounded… You sounded just like her. And the look on your face…”

“She talks these days,” Lauren said quietly. “And she’s getting louder. Please, Mr Von Strucker. We need you to tell us everything you can about your parents.”

Slowly, the golden glow began to fade. _He can’t hold that state. No training, squandering his gifts._

“Are you a mutant too boy?”

Andy stared at the floor. 

“Well?”

“Yes.”

“What can you do?”

“I… don’t know. I’ve only used it once, and I was so angry… It was like… tearing the molecules apart.”

“It’s the same as Andreas,” Lauren confirmed.

“Are you sure?”

“She felt it.”

Otto scrutinised him harder. _He really does look like his father._

“And do you have these… visions too?”

“Twice,” Andy whispered. Otto stared at them for a long moment. 

“Given the situation, I suppose it would be best if you know everything.” He turned around and fetched a locked case from a safe in the wall, setting it down on the table and opening it. He laid an old black and white photograph in a frame on the table. “This is my father, Andreas.”

Andy picked up the photograph, turning it over in his hand. Lauren already knew the face well enough by now, and Andrea knew it straight off. Otto laid down another photograph. “And his sister, Andrea.”

_He kept those photographs, after all these years!_

“As you appear to know, they were mutants. They were also terrorists.” He handed them a stack of newspaper clippings. They were from various countries in various languages, but all bearing their names. One was the all too familiar article Lauren had already seen.

“This was all them?” Andy asked, and Lauren could see the fear behind his eyes. Fear not entirely directed at the newspaper clippings.

“All of it. And more.”

Yes. Lauren couldn’t see any theatre amongst the clippings, or any mentions of soldiers. 

“Tell us about Fenris,” Lauren said softly.

“The wolf.” Otto selected a new sheet from the case, unfolding it carefully before handing it to them. It was a wanted poster bearing their – bearing the Von Struckers’ – photographs and the crimes of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity at the bottom. The part of Lauren that was Andrea recognised it, for she remembered being insulted. 

“The powers in our family’s bloodline have always set us apart, even from other mutants. But together my father and his sister were more powerful than you could ever imagine. And they used this power to do terrible things, unspeakable things.”

“But what was the power?” Andy asked. “What did it do?”

“Destruction,” Otto whispered. “Of everything.”

Andy rubbed at his head. “Wait. We’re mutants, and you, and them… What about dad?”

“Our family’s abilities… They have always been dangerous, and different. I had to stop it.”

Andrea laughed. “How could you possibly think you could stop it?”

Andy kicked his sister.

“I took a job at Trask Industries on a research project to eliminate the X-gene. I never found what they wanted, a serum that worked on all mutants. But I made a version that worked on just one mutant. And gave it to your father.”

“So you… stopped his abilities manifesting?” Andy asked.

“Yes. If it worked as I intended it should have eliminated the X-gene in his genetics and stopped it being passed down. Evidently it didn’t work.”

Lauren couldn’t stop her fast enough.

The part of her that was Andrea started laughing.

“Mr Strucker,” Andy said slowly. “I think you just made it worse.”


	3. Andy I

For Andy the first time was that day in the park.

He’d promised Lauren he wouldn’t let her fall, that he’d catch her.

He let her fall.

He had to.

The moment their hands connected there had been that gold light, and then he…

He wasn’t him anymore.

He was somewhere else, a man grown, holding hands with a woman he somehow knew was his sister, and a building was turning to ash around them.

_Fenris_ , whispered a voice that sounded scarily like Lauren’s inside his head.

He let her fall.

In the months that followed, he would get bits and pieces of an explanation from Lauren, talk of remembering memories that weren’t hers, of remembering being another person before being her, and names.

Andreas and Andrea Von Strucker.

He could only truly understand as he felt that power and the gym warped and crumbled around him.

Except he wasn’t really him anymore.

He was a slightly younger boy, smaller, thinner, staring down the barrel of a gun held by a soldier with an American flag pin on his collar.

Shakily, he reached out and took the hand of the girl next to him. _His sister_ , his mind told him.

A familiar golden light began to crawl up their hands.

Then he was back to being him again as Lauren screamed and shook his shoulders.

_Do you ever remember things that never happened to you?_

He didn’t have time to think about it, stumbling to his feet and letting her guide him out.

“Do you remember the soldiers?” Lauren asked.

She looked scarily happy at his non-answer.

The second time had been as he walked into the shop. It had been stronger then, and he had stopped to blink and rub at his head. He could see the old man, but he could see a child as well, stood between two trees, holding light in his hands. Blink and he could see the man, another blink and he was putting a small boy to bed.

Was this how Lauren had felt for the past three years, except alone and with no one to talk to?

He should have pushed matters further than he did.

This was awful.

How did she cope with this?

At the moment, it seemed, she flat out wasn’t.

She seemed to have a better grip on it before the dance. Oh, he saw it sometimes, in the way she looked at things, comments she made, but only because he knew how to recognise it. Their parents didn’t, so they just didn’t see it.

Now though, as she sat laughing hysterically, that wasn’t Lauren.

That was all the other girl.

Andrea.

He knew it, because at the back of his mind he remembered.

And Mr Strucker’s hands were glowing again, the old man eyeing them as though he wanted to run.

Andy did the only thing that came to mind.

He sprang to his feet, leant over her, and slapped her.

Hard.

“Stop it!” he screamed. “I want my sister back!”

“I am your sister!” she screamed back, and then there was a horrifying moment where it looked like she was both, Lauren and Andrea at the same time, his bright, loving sister and the maniacal other woman both behind her eyes at the same time.

And then she was back to being Lauren again, as though the light had been switched off and on again.

“Lauren? Lauren?”

“It’s me,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry. I hit you.”

“No. Don’t apologise.” And then her hands flew to her mouth. She sprang to her feet. “Bathroom?”

Mr Strucker pointed wordlessly. Andy followed her through, a little nervous about being separated given the events of the last twelve hours. Lauren emptied the contents of her stomach and collapsed against the bathtub. “I’m sorry.”

Andy sunk to the floor beside her. “Are you okay?”

She wrapped her arms around her legs. “I don’t know what came over me! I don’t know what’s wrong with me!”

He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight as she cried until it passed. “How long has it been this bad?”

“Only since the dance. I told you, I think she’s happy. You know, about…” She lifted a hand to his head. “She thinks you’re him. She has since that day at the park.” She scrubbed a hand across her eyes.

“Lauren?” he asked.

“Mm?”

“Will I- Will I get like that?”

She stared at him. “No. No, because I won’t let you. We’ll find a way to stop this, I promise. There has to be a way to fix it, to make this right so we can have a chance at a normal life again.”

Andy pulled away and slammed his hands against the floor. Everything not fastened down in the bathroom jumped and he had a brief flicker of windows shattering around him. “Normal? Lauren, you gotta be kidding me. Normal is gone; normal doesn’t exist anymore! Normal hasn’t existed since you started having someone else’s memories!”

She drew in a deep breath. “My… flashes were linked to my powers at first. Maybe if you don’t use yours…”

“But I was… remembering when we arrived. When I saw Mr Strucker…”

“Yeah,” she mumbled. “Yeah, that happens too. But using my powers made it stronger, made it more often.” She sighed heavily. “Did you dream as him? Last night?”

“No. Do you..?”

“Ever since the park.” She ran her hands through her hair. “Okay. We triggered Fenris at the park, and that made things worse. So we have to avoid doing that, at all costs.”

“How do we do that?”

“Holding hands, I think.”

Andy wrinkled his nose. He was a bit old to still be grabbing his sister’s hand for comfort - but she had taken his, when they were facing the Sentinels. Only for a split second, but-

He wondered if that had been Lauren or Andrea.

“And you have to avoid using your powers for now.”

“But I don’t even know how they work; I don’t know how to control them!”

“We’ll work something out; it only has to be until we can figure out how to fix this.”

For a brief moment he caught the faint smell of something familiar. “What if there is no way of fixing this?”

“There must be; there has to be. We’ll work this out; we’ll make it right. I’ll make it right for you Andy, I promise.”

He caught that smell again and saw a flash of a forest burning, the trees bending and flying away from him. “Lauren?”

“Mm?”

“Can you smell smoke?”

She frowned and sat up a little straighter. “Now that you mention it…”

It smelt like smoke.

Too much that something was just burning.

Andy leapt to his feet and reached for the door handle. Lauren screamed. “Andy wait!”

He opened the door.

A blast of flames roared towards him, colliding with a solid shield of bubbles and molecules. Lauren scrambled to her feet and grabbed his arm.

“What do we do? Lauren, what do we do?”

She slammed the door closed and shoved a shield in front of it, holding the smoke back.

Blink and he was huddled next to a campfire.

Blink and he was back in the bathroom.

“Break the window!”

“What?”

Blink and he was surrounded by gunfire.

Blink and he was back in the bathroom.

“Break the window!”

“But you said-!”

Blink and he was facing a man with fire in his hands.

Blink and he was back in the bathroom.

“Andy just do it!”

He took a step back and focused on the window, remembering all his anger and fear at the bullies who hurt him, all the terror at what he might become.

Blink and he was standing in a building turning to ash.

Blink and he was back in the bathroom.

The window shattered, glass flying outwards.

“What now?”

Lauren grabbed his arm, pulling him over to the window and throwing up a shield just outside the sill. “Come on!”

There was nothing for it then.

Andy wondered briefly who was in control right now, Lauren or Andrea, and then decided he didn’t really care right at this very moment.

He scrambled through the window onto the shield. Lauren followed close behind him and threw up another shield beneath them as the one they were on gave way. She threw up another just in front and a little way beneath, pulling him behind her as she jumped onto it.

Unless Lauren had somehow practised at this, this had to be Andrea.

Andy let out a hiss of relief as his feet hit the ground in the alley.

Blink and he was dropping down in front of an old looking shiny black car.

Blink and he was in the street.

Flames roared inside the antique shop and above flat.

Lauren scowled at the burning building. That was bound to attract attention. Andy reached for her arm by some instinct and then hesitated. “Lauren, we have to go.”

They’d have to work out the how and where once they were moving. Lauren nodded and set off at a jog to the end of the alley, Andy close behind.

A few people were already emerging from their houses onto the street, but it was one person that caught Andy’s attention.

“Mr Strucker,” he shouted, and then stopped.

Because how had the fire started?

The thought had barely just occurred to him before Lauren started to scream at him.

“You tried to kill us!”

“I won’t let it be like before; I won’t let you hurt anyone!”

Golden light began to arc up Mr Strucker’s arms, spreading faster than before.

Blink and he was a child stood in an empty room.

Blink and he was back to being an old man.

Fuck this was giving him a headache!

A pulsing ball of red light formed between Mr Strucker’s hands. Andy reached for Lauren’s arm.

“Lauren-”

A large, solid shield formed in the street and hurtled towards the old man. He released the ball of light. It slammed into Lauren’s shield with a boom like thunder.

Lauren flung up another shield. “I never knew you had it in you Toto!”

The golden light began to build around Mr Strucker’s arms again. Lauren smiled, and she did not look like Lauren at all Andy grabbed at her arm. “Lauren-!”

“You always were too soft hearted!” She flicked her hand and the shield flew across the street. It met Mr Strucker’s burst of energy barely in front of him and the explosion hurled him back against the wall. A shield of bubbles wrapped around his neck.

"I thought you knew better!" Lauren screamed. "If you start a job, finish it!"

Balls of red light flickered in his hands, growing and pulsing and then fading as he choked for air.

"Lauren stop! Stop! You'll kill him!" Andy shouted, shaking her shoulders.

"He tried to kill us Andreas!"

It wasn't Lauren.

This anger, the mania, the rage...

It wasn't Lauren.

It was all Andrea, the monster, the murderer, the homicidal maniac.

There was nothing there of his sister.

Andy drove a fist straight into her face.

She cried out, staggering backwards, her hands flying to her face.

Andy hit her again, and again, and again, screaming, until on the sixth blow his hand was stopped by a shield, and then he kicked her. "Lauren! Snap out of it! Stop! Lauren!"

She raised her arms to protect herself, shields flashing in and out in front of her. "Andy! It's me, it's me, it's me!" The voice sounded like hers. Andy dropped the assault.

They stared at each other. Blood dripped from his split knuckles and her mouth, nose, and grazed temple.

"It's okay," she whispered. "It's me."

"Lauren," he mumbled, his mouth tripping over the word. "Lauren?"

"It's me." Her eyes seemed to take in the devastation of the street for the first time, the still burning antique shop and shattered windows of buildings on the street, the stone blown from walls and the road. People lay, bruised, dazed and bloody, at the edges of the street where they had been thrown by the force of Lauren and Mr Strucker's powers colliding.

"Did we- Did I- Was this-"

Sirens screamed through the air and a police car shot into the street. Lauren reached for his hand, stopped, and took his arm instead. “We have to get out of here."

"What about him?' He pointed at Mr Strucker, who was groaning and starting to push himself from the ground.

Blink and he was a small child lying bloody on the grass.

Blink and he was back in the street.

Two policemen jumped from the car.

“Hands in the air! Don’t move!”

“There’s nothing we can do for him. Come on!”

“But we can’t just leave him!”

But they didn’t have much of a choice either. People started shooting, and the bullets weren’t only coming from the police. Lauren raised shields to protect them.

Thick black smoke was rising into the air, the taste of it thick in his mouth, making his eyes feel sticky.

Blink and he was stood in the middle of a blinking building.

Blink and he was back in the street.

A short distance away was a car with the front door open and the engine running, the driver evidently having fled.

They ran for it, and Andy wondered what world they were living in now that he would quite happily just steal a car.

Blink and he was yanking a man in a suit from a truck, leaving him broken and bloody on the ground.

Blink and he was climbing into the car’s driving seat.

Blink and a bullet was shattering a window.

Blink and he was back in the car with Lauren screaming next to him.

“Go go go!”

They screeched from the street and away from the destruction.


	4. Andy II

He drove without knowing what he was aiming for. Lauren put her head between her knees, whispering and muttering frantically to herself.

Andy really hoped his sister was winning.

Blink and he was driving a truck through the snow – except it wasn’t all snow.

Blink and they were back on the road.

The radio talked about their incident in Chatanooga.

They were calling it a deliberate mutant terrorist attack.

They were saying one mutant had been detained and two more were still on the run.

They were saying they were highly dangerous.

Andy turned the radio off.

They found a payphone at the side of the road and he rang his dad’s mobile. It took a few rings before he answered.

“Dad?”

“Andy?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“Andy, Andy, where are you?”

“About an hour and a half outside Chatanooga I think, I’m not sure.”

“Chatanooga? Did you go- Wait, that was you? The attack in Chatanooga?”

“It wasn’t- It wasn’t like that.”

“Andy, two people are dead!”

He must have missed that part of the report.

“Is Lauren okay?”

“Yeah, she’s fine, she’s with me. Dad, what do I do?”

“Put Lauren on.”

Andy glanced at his sister, who was still sat in the car muttering to herself. “She can’t talk right now.”

“I thought you said she’s fine!”

“She is fine! She just can’t talk right now! Look, what do we do; what do we do?”

“Okay, Andy, listen to me. I’m going to give you an address. We’ll meet you there, there are people who are going to help get us out of the country.”

The address was for a warehouse district. Their parents were already there when they arrived, running to meet them and pull them into a hug.

“Are you hurt?” asked their mom.

“What did you think you were doing?” demanded their dad.

“Okay, okay, touching reunion, but we’ll have time for that later,” announced a dark haired man in the doorway. “Come on, it’s time to go.”

“And who are you to give us orders?” asked Lauren. It was the first sentence she had said since they left Chatanooga and didn’t sound like her at all.

“Lauren,” Andy muttered. “Don’t do this, we need you.” He needed her.

Lauren raised her hands to her head, rubbed her eyes.

“I’m the man that’s saving all your skins, for all that it’s worth. You two have single handedly made it hotter for mutants everywhere. Let’s go.”

They were surrounded by Sentinel Services before they could. Andy saw Lauren reach for his hand and stepped out of her reach. She seemed to snap back to herself again and snatched her hand away.

That was when things really went to hell in a handbasket.

Two more mutants arrived and ordered them into one of the warehouses. Andy grabbed Lauren’s upper arm, shouting for his dad to take her other side, pulling her along with them. Shields flashed in and out behind them, slamming into robots and smashing them to pieces.

They kept running.

The robots still cornered them in the hallway when the door out was sealed shut. The man that met them – Eclipse, the other man had called him – held them back with twin beams of light.

Andy shook Lauren’s arm. “Lauren. Shield us.”

She shook her head, moving her mouth as if making words but no sound came out. Andy shook her harder. “Lauren c’mon! We need you, I need you! Do something! Do the smashing thing like before! Shield us! Lauren!”

One of the men was having a similar argument with the green eyed woman. Lauren stepped forward and a shield flashed up across the hallway.

Blink and she was stood in a tunnel holding back bullets.

Blink and they were back in the hallway.

The mutant woman was holding green and purple energy between her hands, growing it into an image of another room. Lauren’s shield cracked and faltered.

“Go!” screamed the woman. The man that had been arguing with her jumped through. “Come through, it’s safe!”

Andy reached for Lauren.

Flash and she was a smaller woman in a blue dress.

Flash and she was her again.

“Lauren come on!”

She screamed, crushing one of the robots as it tried to fight its way through the shield.

“Lauren!”

One of the robots was almost through. Andy grabbed her arm and pulled her back. “Lauren go! Go!” He shoved her, harder than he expected, and she flew through the weird hole after their mom.

Flash and the robots were snarling dogs.

Flash and he was back in the hallway.

Flash and they were soldiers being ripped apart by an unseen force.

Flash and he was back in the hallway.

Flash and it was an armoured car bearing down on him.

He held his hands out, remembering all the rage, the anger and pain.

“Andy!” someone screamed from behind him.

The name didn’t seem to fit right.

The robots and the car were ripped into a thousand pieces.

His dad grabbed his shoulders. “Let’s go!”

They made it to the hole – and then his dad stumbled, fell.

Andy stumbled through the hole before he knew what was going on.

“Reed!” screamed their mom, rushing towards the hole as though to throw herself back through. One of the men grabbed her.

“Reed!”

“I can’t hold it!” screamed the mutant holding the hole, and it collapsed into itself.

Their dad was left on the other side.

Their mom immediately began screaming and begging to go back to him. The mutant woman had collapsed, so that wasn’t happening. Andy scrambled over to Lauren. “Lauren?”

Her mouth moved but still there were no words.

“Lauren!”

“We should have destroyed them,” she muttered. “We should have destroyed them all.”

Andy slapped her. Their mom cried out. “Andy!”

He slapped her again, harder this time. “Lauren come on! Snap out of it!”

Again there was that lightswitch moment, and she blinked at him, looking like Lauren again. “Andy?”

“Lauren?”

“It’s me.” She rubbed her cheek.

“Sorry.”

“No, it- It’s alright. I’m alright.”

He nodded and pulled her forward into a hug.

Flash and he was tangled with a blonde woman on a bed.

That was not an image he needed while hugging his sister.

Flash and he was back in the… basement?

Yeah, some sort of basement.

They didn’t have much time to talk, or explain to their mom, or think about their dad, as the mutant woman – Clarice – started losing control of her powers and erratically opening portals, or space holes as their mom named them. Lauren was left to close them as their mom set off with Eclipse – one of the men – to retrieve medicine to stabilise her. Closing the portals seemed to grow harder for Lauren each time.

“Why should we run?” she asked when the two mutants left with them, Thunderbird and Dreamer, started talking about evacuating the facility. “We should stand and fight.”

Andy slapped her round the back of the head. She yelped and stumbled, shaking her head violently.

“You were doing it again.”

“Sorry.”

“You weren’t this bad before. Why’s it worse now?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I think it might be something to do with my powers.”

“Sorry, what’s wrong with her?” asked Thunderbird.

“My sister and I have… flashes. Visions of some sort from the last people to have powers like ours.”

Thunderbird frowned. “That’s a new one.”

“It’ll be a bit like your foresight I suppose Johnny.”

“Yeah, except foresight doesn’t talk to you,” Lauren said, stepping forward to close the newest portal to open. A small army was starting to gather on the other side.

“Or advocate being a murderous psychopath whose desired solution to pretty much everything is slaughtering it.”

Andy thought back to that moment in the tunnel, tearing the robots apart. Had that been him, or the man in his head? The portal shrunk closed. Lauren stumbled back a few steps, panting. “Otherwise, yeah. Exactly like foresight.”

Thunderbird and Dreamer exchanged a look.

“Not now,” he said, and another portal opened.

Later then.

Later, they sat in a cramped ‘office’ with Dreamer, the red haired woman.

She’d asked if they wanted their mom there too, but they declined.

She asked if they wanted help with the whole ‘memories from other people’ thing.


	5. Otto

Fifty three years.

For fifty three years he had hidden.

For fifty three years he had buried everything deep.

And all of it for nothing.

All of it gone in the space of less than three hours.

Perhaps the strangest thing was that he didn’t regret it.

Not for a moment.

It was bad enough that the powers had come back, that was one thing, but to sit there and hear Andrea’s voice coming from that girl’s mouth.

That chilled him to the bone.

It was a primal sort of fear, something remembered from his childhood, an echo of a distant memory.

It couldn’t happen.

She couldn’t be here.

Burning the building down was, in retrospect, a mistake.

He should have taken them out directly.

“I don’t know what you think you’re going to charge me on,” he told the arresting agent. “It’s not a crime to damage my own damn shop and house.”

“But it is a crime to blow up half a street and kill two people, with a further five in critical condition.”

Well.

Yes.

Yes it was.

After the agents from Sentinel Services and prosecutor were done, no more visitors were expected.

So this Doctor Roderick Campbell was a surprise.

“I was a big fan of your work Mr Strucker, although this rather puts a different spin on things.”

“My work? I’m an antiques dealer.”

“You were an antiques dealer. I meant your work on suppressing the X-gene. Quite brilliant, we’ve been building on it ourselves.”

“I fail to see the relevance Mr Campbell.”

“I’ll lay it out flat then Mr Strucker. I want to strike a deal with you. Agree to work for me, and I’ll have you let off the charges.”

“I have no interest in continuing my work.”

“Four people now dead, a further eleven still in hospital, one in critical condition. Mass damage to surrounding shops and homes. Those are some serious charges Mr Strucker.” Campbell stood. “Think about my offer.”

Otto thought about it for precisely six point four minutes, until he was locked up back in his cell. His work had all been to one aim, an aim he had ultimately failed to achieve. He wasn’t there to play lap dog and lab rat for Trask after all these years.

Old men like him fared badly in prison, and after the second attack they put him in solitary. For his own protection they said.

The cell they held him in was hardly the most secure of places. Otto could hear the woman in the cell behind his screaming and pounding the walls.

According to the guards that came to collect him, he was to be transferred back to the Sentinel Services Regional Headquarters. He wasn’t the only one. Along with him was a young woman with deep green hair who glared at the guards like she wanted to rip them apart.

“So what are you here for?” she asked when they started moving. One of the guards nudged her with his gun.

“No talking Miss Dane!”

She snorted and lounged back on the bench, scowling at the world until they reached their destination, which happened to be, surprise surprise, another set of cells, where she immediately began offering sarcasm on everything around her. “Nice digs you got here. Homey.”

They were only to be there for a couple of days of course, before being sent on to another more high level facility. Aka, one of the experimenting labs.

Otto knew what happened to mutants sent to ‘high level facilities.’ All too well. He was retired, but he still had his contacts.

“You had your chance to cooperate Miss Dane,” the agent in charge told her. She huffed.

“Little favour? Call me Polaris.”

Otto rolled his eyes. “Oh yes, very heroic I’m sure.”

“And what business is it of yours what I want to be called? They’re sending us to Hell, it’s the least they can do.”

They were led through into the cells, where the last person he ever would have expected or wanted to see there was sat.

“Well that’s… interesting,” observed Miss Dane. “You want to tell me what my prosecutor’s doing in a cell?”

“Mr Strucker’s got legal problems of his own.”

Ah. Those children of his, presumably. 

“He’s heading to the same place you are.”

They were led into cells as she continued to talk. Did she ever shut up, just for a moment?

“The same son of a bitch who tried to use my unborn child to get me to turn against my friends is going to prison with me? What is it, my birthday?”

“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself Miss Dane.”

“It’s Polaris,” she snapped as he left, before glancing back at Otto. “So what you here for?”

“Blowing up my own damn shop. Reed, you tried to use her baby as a weapon?”

“You blew up- Wait, so it _was_ you Lauren and Andy went to see in Chatanooga?”

“Okay, I am so out of the loop here,” whined little miss heroic.

“A whole lot of things have happened that you don’t know about,” Reed told her. His gaze moved to Otto’s collar. “You- You’re-”

“Yes Reed. I am a mutant.”

“But-”

“There are things you don’t know.”

“And things that shouldn’t be said in front of the guard and under the camera,” drawled little miss heroic. “What’s between you two anyway?”

“He- He’s my dad?”

“Your dad? So why aren’t you a mutant?” She narrowed her eyes. “Or are you?”

“No, I’m not! Miss Dane-”

“Polaris.”

“Polaris. Listen to me.”

Otto left them to bicker.

It was torture, sitting one cell away from Reed and not being able to say… so many things. About his life, the truth, his children…

Those children…

Otto still didn’t regret it.

Miss Heroic spent her time trying to break out of her cell despite the collar until the day came for them to be put on the transport bus, where they were fitted with new collars to hold them to the seats, like animals in a café.

The journey went in silence for three hours, and then something went wrong. A tire blowout it felt like. The agent jumped from the van, evidently fearing an attack. Gunfire erupted outside.

Panic and confusion broke out. Three of the agents entered the back of the van.

“Is there a problem officer?” drawled Miss Heroic.

“You sure they’re safe to..?”

“It’s fine, just get them off. They can’t do anything anyway, all the muties in the area are shut down.”

That was… interesting.

Reed, the idiot, headbutted his guard, and Miss Heroic followed his lead.

He really was too old for this, but he couldn’t stand to sit by while one of the guards kicked his floored son. With their backs to him, Otto let the energy build in his hands for the second time in a week. One of the guards gaped at him. “What the-”

The force of the explosion blew the van apart.

There were people running towards them before the smoke even started to clear.

“Lorna!” came a disembodied man’s voice.

“Marcos,” she rasped. Light lit up the smoky darkness.

“How did you find us?”

“It really doesn’t matter now. Come on, we gotta go.”

His ears were ringing and the world spinning.

He’d known he was too old for this.

Someone pulled him to his feet and he stumbled after them. Another man was half-carrying Reed, who looked barely conscious. Something twisted in his gut. _This_ was why he never used his powers; _this_ was why it was too dangerous.

A car screeched to a halt in front of them. A blonde woman stuck her head out. “Come on, get in!”

They scrambled into the car and she floored it, tearing away up the road. “Reed! Oh- Reed, is he okay, is he alright, is he hurt?”

“Just dazed from the explosion I think,” replied the man with him.

“What caused that anyway?” asked the one who now had Miss Heroic sat on his lap. “Was that you baby?”

“No, I can’t- I think it was him.” She jerked her chin at Otto.

“That’s some impressive firepower.”

Otto grunted a response. He shouldn’t have done that.

Their rescuers, it seemed, were the Mutant Underground, with the two men being John and Marcos, or Thunderbird and Eclipse as they requested. They switched cars at the nearest gas station, with John taking over driving so Caitlin could tend to Reed. There were angry burns to his arms and small cuts to his entire body, but none of it serious. It was a long, twelve hour drive to their destination, which was apparently a large deserted looking building.

Reed was able to walk by the time they arrived, though he leant heavily on Caitlin. Lauren and Andy met them inside.

Otto couldn’t stop himself shying away.

Nor did he miss the anger and disgust on Andy’s face when he looked at him.

“I’m glad you’re okay Mr Strucker,” was the only thing Lauren had to say to him.

The two teenagers did come to see him the following night, when the further events had died down.

“We wanted to say… we understand,” Lauren said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“We understand. The trying to kill us thing. They were monsters. The girl and her brother. I can’t say I forgive you for it, but I understand.”

“Yes.”

“And I’m sorry about your shop,” Lauren said.

“And the whole getting you arrested thing,” muttered Andy. She frowned.

“Andy!”

“Well we kinda did!”

“Yeah. Sorry about that too.”

There seemed something… different about her now. A brighter kind of confidence.

“There’s another mutant here. Dreamer. She’s been helping us. With our… flashes.”

“Lauren means she’s been getting rid of them,” Andy muttered.

“Are they gone?”

Lauren shrugged. “I can’t speak for Andy, but I don’t know if she’ll ever be gone. But she isn’t so loud anymore, and she doesn’t go on attempted destruction and murder sprees.”

“Always a bonus,” commented Andy. She shook her head and slapped his shoulder.

“You don’t see them anymore then?”

“Oh, we still see them,” replied Andy. “But Dreamer helps get rid of the memories. It helps.” He glanced at Lauren. “It’s... really helped.”

“And… Fenris?”

“We’d rather not use that.” Lauren reached for Andy’s arm. “We best get back to mom and dad. Goodnight Mr Strucker.”

“Goodnight.”

Reed came to him on the fourth night. Yellowing bruises marked his face. Otto hated himself for it. He did that, with the power he swore never to use.

“We need to talk.”

“Yes, we do.”

They talked long into the night. Otto told him everything, the truth of his family legacy and the childhood illness that nearly killed him.

“There’s a truck leaving for Mexico in two days. I think you should go with them,” Reed said.

“Perhaps I should, but I won’t.”

“Dad-”

“I might not believe in these so-called freedom fighters Reed, but I worked for Trask for thirty five years. I’m needed here.”

He had to admit he considered leaving though.

It still scared him to know the children had those powers – the powers he tried so hard to eradicate from this world - and scared him even more to learn they were training.

They could level this building if they wanted to.

They could do it by accident.

If they slipped, even for a moment, like he had seen from Lauren that day on the street, they could wreak so much devastation.

Otto wasn’t afraid to admit it scared him.


	6. Lauren and Andy

For three years Lauren had memories from another person, a different life inside her head. She had lived like that, with the girl getting louder and louder and louder until she could barely hear herself over all the noise, for what felt like forever.

When Andy threw her through that portal she was certain she was going to lose herself.

She couldn’t sort out what was her and what was the girl; it was like a war for control between them – and the other girl nearly won.

If it hadn’t been for Andy…

They stayed with the Underground. Polaris was helping them train – and they had to see Dreamer after every session to get rid of the memory flashes that came to them as missiles rained down around them.

Even now Lauren had to fight the urge to grab Andy’s hand and put an end to the one trying to attack them (train them, she had to remind herself, they were training).

But it was better. With every day that passed and every memory Dreamer took away she felt more like herself again.

(and yet at night she lay in the bunk next to andy’s and dreamt of a life that was no longer hers)

Dreamer had to take those memories away too.

Lauren felt like a stranger in her own skin.

She wasn’t her anymore, she hadn’t been her for a long time, but she wasn’t the girl either, never could be, because part of her would always be Lauren, a Lauren who could never be Lauren because part of her would always be the girl.

She was pretty sure the girl would always be there to some extent. She had come to the realisation a long time ago that they weren’t two separate people. The girl lived in her, and she lived in the girl, two beings, two minds and humans across two different lifetimes and eras.

Life in the Mutant Underground was tough.

Nothing was constant. People came and went, more people than before according to Dreamer. Between him and Lauren destroying a chunk of a school and part of a street and then Polaris, their dad, and his dad escaping Sentinel Services, Sentinel Services was hitting back by hitting… everywhere.

“They’re even going after sanctuaries, mutant safe houses. Nowhere is safe anymore,” said Sage as Thunderbird, Eclipse and Blink arrived with the newest mutants. They dragged a thin woman off down to the basement, leaving Blink and the welcoming mutants to deal with the newcomers. Amongst then was a slender woman with soft blonde hair and blue eyes.

She looked eerily familiar.

Lauren gazed at her, trying to place her. A short way away she could see Andy kept sneaking looks as well.

So it wasn’t just her.

The implication struck her a moment later. If she looked familiar to both of them…

Lauren watched as she spoke to Chloe Tan, pulling information from her. That feeling only got stronger and stronger, growing inside her chest, eating at her heart.

She glanced at Andy and followed her from the room. He followed. 

The girl’s memories were mostly gone, but she was still there, somewhere. Lauren reached into the part of her that was her, and searched as they caught up with the telepath in an empty hallway. 

“I know you.”

She looked them over. “I… don’t think we’ve properly met actually. I’m Esme.”

Lauren gazed at her and the knowledge hit like a shock wave, a flash of a woman made of diamond in silk sheets.

“Like Emma but not Emma,” the girl murmured. “How very fascinating.”

Esme went white. “How could you possibly-”

Andy grabbed her arm. “My sister knows things sometimes. We have to go now, nice talking, bye.”

“Wait-”

Andreas dragged her around the corner and slammed her against the wall. “Lauren, look at me. Lauren!”

She stared at him, half-seeing a different face. 

“Lauren, you’re doing it again.”

She blinked, the world lurched, and then she was her again, except not quite. “It’s me, Andy, it’s me.”

“Lauren?” He let out a long breath. “I thought that didn’t happen anymore!”

She rubbed her head. “I thought so too.”

He grabbed her arm. “Come on. We better go see Dreamer.”

Lauren followed him wordlessly.

“So, Emma?” he said as they walked.

“She was…” Lauren rubbed her head, trying to fix the flashed image in her head. “Was part of a club with us- with them. That woman, Esme, she’s… connected to her. I think we should be very careful around her.”

Esme no-last-name-given was very careful around them back.

Andy was sure his heart was going to stop when he heard that voice, those words, come out of Lauren’s mouth.

He’d thought they were over that!

And yet…

Something had felt different this time.

There had been more of Lauren in her words, more of Lauren’s voice in her tone.

It wasn’t like before.

That night he dreamt of having to run and hide, of police breaking into an apartment, and of holding hands with a girl he couldn’t see while the world turned to ash around them.

It took another three nights before he realised the significance and pulled Lauren aside. “I’m having these dreams,” he started, and there was no need to finish.

Dreamer could take the memories away, but what she couldn’t do was remove the feelings, the thoughts of being another person, having another person in his head trying desperately to be part of him.

The only person that understood was Lauren.

“You just have to fight it. You can never give in, not for a second. That’s how I ended up having my… episodes.”

Andy tried to hold on, but it felt like every time he went to sleep he lost a piece of himself.

“It felt like that for me at first,” Lauren agreed. “It gets better.”

It got better.

And then they had to attack the power station.

And everything went to hell.

Blink was caught by a sentinel.

Dreamer was caught by the guards.

They were left in the empty basement as the Sentinel Services closed in around them.

“We could get out,” Lauren said. “If we- we-”

If they did the one thing they absolutely should not do under any circumstances.

“Like Fenris.”

“We can’t. You’ve said it yourself we can’t. And we’re in the basement of the building, everyone will die.”

Maybe everyone should.

Andy shook his head to get rid of that thought as Sentinel Services closed in around them.

Doctor Campbell knew about their great-grandparents.

And their ability to combine their powers.

He wanted to know if they could do the same thing. He wanted to test it. 

It was funny. They could destroy this building if they wanted to, turn it to nothing, along with everyone in it, but because they didn’t want to they were sat here in this cell waiting for Campbell to come back and make more demands.

He came back.

He made more demands.

He shot Dreamer.

Andy wasn’t him anymore.

All he knew was the panic tainted anger.

He wanted them to pay.

He wanted them all dead.

He didn’t even know when Lauren’s hand found his, when the golden light started shining, when he started seeing the capacity for destruction around him, but he didn’t care.

He wanted them dead.

The adamantium bore the brunt of their blast, exploding outwards. The building began to shake. Dust fell from the ceiling.

Lauren’s hand tightened in his.

They would destroy these humans who thought they could hold them.

And then there was nothing but pain as the collar activated and started shocking him. They collapsed in a heap, their hands still locked together.

On the screen, Campbell was gaping at their power.

When these collars were gone, they’d show him what true power was.

The apparently omnipresent Agent Turner returned with a squad of men to remove all the mutants.

Flash and he was a policeman being ripped apart.

Flash and he was him again.

“You’re too late,” Lauren spat as they were marched out to the transport.

Dreamer was already dead.

She was weak, whispered something at the back of his head, she deserved to die.

No.

Dreamer was their friend.

And no one deserved to die.

Lauren stopped dead when she got on the transport bus. The guard whacked her with his gun. “Keep moving.”

Andy knew what she’d seen as he followed her on. He made himself follow her and they were secured with Blink at the back of the bus.

“I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say those are Esme’s sisters,” he whispered. Blink frowned.

“They what?”

“At the front of the bus. Esme’s sisters,” Andy replied, jerking his head at the blonde mutants.

Oh good, said that voice, the cavalry’s here.

This was not about to go well.

The transport bus stopped before they even got through the gate of the lab, which was when the gunfire started and Andy felt the collar deactivate. The driver turned around and shot the guard before turning the gun on himself. Blink jumped up. “We need to get these collars off. Someone help me find the key!”

The guard had been carrying it. Blink unlocked her own and then theirs, followed by the cuckoos before either of them could stop her. The two women stepped down off the bus. Lauren began simply snapping off collars using her shields while Blink unlocked others.

They hurried off the transport to find themselves in the middle of a slaughter overseen by the three women, their eyes glowing blue.

"Time to go boys and girls,” they announced. “The fun's just starting.”

They thought they could order them around!

Them!

Andreas reached for his sister’s hand.


	7. Fenris

For a moment, and only a moment, Lauren felt complete. There were no restraints this time, no one to shock them or tell them no. There was no surprise like in the park, and no need for them to stop.

They could give these vermin exactly what they deserved.

The transport vehicle and surrounding guard buildings crumbled to nothing under their power. If not for Blink opening up a portal and shoving them through to Eclipse, Thunderbird, Polaris and Shatter, Lauren was pretty sure they would have reduced those with them and the Trask lab to dust as well.

Part of her still said they should have done.

Dreamer’s body had been left at Trask Headquarters, but they held a memorial for her regardless. Lauren felt misplaced attending. It was because of them she was dead.

They got her killed.

Their parents wanted to leave on the next transport to Mexico. They fought over it bitterly.

“But we can help here!”

“It’s not safe here, especially with Esme and her sisters around! We have to leave!” shouted their dad.

“It’s not safe anywhere!” Lauren snapped.

There was silence.

“This world’s not safe,” Andy said. “Not for people like us.”

“Lauren, Andy, you’re not even adults!”

“But we’re old enough to help, and strong enough to fight!”

Maybe they could do some good this time, instead of all those terrible wrongs they did.

“Absolutely not! We are leaving and you are coming with us.”

“But this could be a chance to make things right! To actually help!”

“It’s not up for debate.”

They left for Fairburn in the morning, along with Otto Strucker.

Fairburn was attacked shortly after they arrived by mutants with a weird looking manacle joining their lower arms together. The girl reached for Andy’s hand, but he was knocked unconscious before they could do anything. The girl screeched and screamed with anger and Lauren screamed with her. Her shields slammed into the attacking mutants, slicing one open from shoulder to hip, but she still wasn’t as powerful as she should be, as part of her remembered being.

She needed Andy, she needed Andreas.

Lauren ran, despite part of her demanding to stand and fight and destroy those that would threaten them.

The Underground came to rescue them, and with a little help from Esme and her sisters, they returned to the Atlanta headquarters.

Nothing more was said about them leaving.

Andy said once that it felt like nothing had gone right since he discovered his powers and destroyed the gym.

Lauren was pretty sure it had started before that.

It started when she discovered her own powers, when she had the first flash from the girl.

Sometimes she wondered whether Mr Strucker might have had the right idea when he started that fire, and even before then, when he tried to destroy their inheritance.

The girl and her brother were dangerous, destructive terrorists.

She and Andy were dangerous and destructive.

Not only that, but it was them who gave Campbell the knowledge to combine mutant abilities, to make Hounds like the ones that attacked them at Fairburn.

“History’s written by the victors,” Andy said. “Andreas and his sister weren’t terrorists; they wanted to build a safe place for mutants.”

“Andy, that’s not what the girl in my head says.”

No.

She said _kill all the humans._

She said _mutants should rule the Earth._

She said _mutants are superior._

She said _look after your own first and foremost._

“Well, it’s what the man in mine says.”

They stared at each other for a long time. Lauren sat down. “He talks to you now?”

“Sometimes.”

“Do you agree with him?”

“Sometimes.”

Lauren sighed. “Me too. That’s what scares me.”

“They were looking for a safe place.”

Lauren swallowed. “No, Andy, they weren’t.”

He looked at her properly for the first time. “I don’t understand.”

“They weren’t _looking_ for a safe place Andy. They were looking to _make the Earth_ a safe place.”

He frowned. “What?”

“By killing all the humans.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.” Lauren rested her head on her hands. “They were monsters Andy.”

There was silence between them as he closed his book and began angrily scrawling out the doodle of a wolf he had made while reading.

“Lauren?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you ever…”

She had an awful feeling she knew what was coming.

“…ever… want to just…” He waved his hands uselessly.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “I get that sometimes.”

Sentinel Services went after their grandma, partly because she was related to them and partly because she had been Otto Strucker’s wife. Since he remained safe with the Underground, giving them information about his work for Trask, she was the nearest thing to an asset they had to aim for.

Andy wanted to destroy them.

No.

The thing inside him, the other man, _Andreas_ , he wanted to destroy them.

It was one thing to tear apart robots, but it was another to _flash_ and see living beings ripped apart by his power.

“I’m scared Lauren,” he whispered. She took a step closer to him.

“Me too.”

“How did you cope with this for three years?”

“Fighting.”

“What if I’m not strong enough to fight it? What if he wins?”

Lauren turned to face him and rested her forehead against his. “You’re stronger than you think Andy. I think they’ll always be part of us, but they can’t win completely. Maybe we can do some good with this power this time.”

Or maybe they could destroy everything all over again, hundreds of thousands dead, bodies broken and bloody on the ground.

Andy tried not to see it, but the image flashed every time he closed his eyes.

All they could do was listen to the news from the Summit on the radio.

Things were going badly.

Incredibly badly.

There had to be something else they could do!

From here, though, there was nothing to be done.

Especially not once Sentinel Services found them.

 _Pity,_ Andy remembers once saying. _I like this place._

He looks at Lauren.

 _“Not now,”_ she mouths. _“Too many civilians.”_

There would be too many casualties. The Sentinel Services, yes, but the mutants as well. Their parents. Everyone else who was in the building.

Not yet.

Bullets rained on the building from the outside.

Flash and he was holding a standpoint against a small army.

Flash and he was back in the headquarters.

Lauren deflected a bullet and it bounced into a man’s chest.

Flash and it was a policeman dying.

Flash and it was the agent again.

Andy saw the horrified look their dad gave Lauren even if she missed it.

Flash and he was smaller, younger, barely a child, being looked down on, scorned, by a large man in military uniform.

Flash and he was back in the headquarters.

Lauren had lived with this for three years.

Andy was going insane after five months.

Despite their best efforts there were men getting through, and they had brought those accursed conjoined Hounds with them!

 _Abominations_ , whispered the voice in his head.

Andy met up with Lauren as they began to fall back towards the vault, where their mom said the tunnel was nearly through.

“If they see us… They’ll know where we went, they’ll catch us out there,” she was saying.

Andy looked at Lauren.

She looked at him.

Flash and they were stood in the centre of a crowded building, screams ringing in their ears as everything ended.

“Maybe we could do some actual good this time round,” she whispered.

“Everyone would get out,” he said. “Everyone would be safe.”

“We could lose ourselves.”

“I hate this. I’ll take that risk.”

“Yeah,” she breathed. “Me too.” She turned to their parents. “Mom, dad… We can get everyone out.”

“What are you talking about?”

“If we destroy the building after getting everyone out then we can cover our tracks.”

It was a good tactical move, one he could remember using before, when he was him but not him. Their dad frowned and looked between them.

“Wait, wait. You know what that means?”

More than he did.

“Yeah we know.”

Another explosion rocked the building.

“They’re coming. You did your part, let us do ours.”

Their mom bid them a tearful goodbye before their dad dragged her away down the tunnel. Lauren turned to him. “Are you sure about this? I mean, really sure about this?”

“You said it yourself. Maybe we can do some good this time round. Everyone will be safe.”

Lauren nodded. “If I’m… not me, when we’re done, I want you to know that I love you.”

“Yeah. Yeah, me too.”

Together, they turned and reached for the other’s hand before going to meet the Hounds.

He was him, but not him at the same time, two people at once, the memories burning inside his head, forcing themselves places they seemed to fit flawlessly. The power was on another level. He could feel it running through him and see the seams of the building as they fell apart. Nothing meant anything anymore, time or place, or position. It could be the Headquarters, or a skyscraper, or a theatre, or a squad of soldiers. Flesh and bone, wood and steel, concrete and iron, all of it crumbled away, leaving nothing behind.


	8. Caitlin and Reed

Lauren and Andy were…

different now.

Everyone could see it.

The other mutants, their allies, and especially their parents.

They had said nothing about it, not a word, but something had changed. Like a shift inside them, as if something had clicked into place. It was there in the way they looked at things, looked at people, looked at each other.

“Lauren, Andy,” Caitlin pleaded on the second night after That Battle. “What happened in that building? What’s going on inside your heads?”

Lauren smiled. “It’s okay mom. We’re fine.”

“More than fine,” Andy said as Lauren leant into him. They had kept the contact almost constantly since That Battle, as though they couldn’t bear not to be touching, couldn’t bear to be apart. Caitlin wondered whether it was a safety thing, they felt comforted knowing they could always just activate that terrible, destructive power and destroy everything if they needed to, but something deep in her heart told her this was something else.

There was something deeply wrong with her babies.

With the headquarters gone they regrouped and discussed what was to be done. Lauren sat so close to Andy she was partly on his chair, her head lolling against his shoulder. Andy had an arm around her waist.

It looked… disturbingly non-sibling to Reed’s eyes, but they had been like that since they walked down that slope with ashes trailing behind them.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Andy had said when he tried to ask what happened, whether they were okay, what was going on with them. “Only we understand.”

Maybe that was why they kept so close together.

Reed told himself that was why they kept so close together.

Polaris returned as they argued about matters, with Esme (or one of her sisters) at her shoulder. “The mutant underground is dying,” she announced. “That world where we don’t have to hide, that we’ve always talked about, I want to build that.”

And then people started leaving to join them, Fade and Sage amongst them. Andy and Lauren stood.

“No,” Reed said, reaching for them. “No way.”

“Reed,” said his father warily.

“Stay out of this!” he snapped.

“Stay where you are.” Caitlin grabbed at Lauren’s arm. She shied away into Andy, a bubble shield flaring up to buffer Caitlin away.

“Let them go,” his father said, pushing himself to his feet.

“No!” Caitlin shouted, turning on Polaris. “You are not taking our children!”

“They’re not taking us,” Lauren said softly.

“It’s our decision,” Andy finished.

“I can’t let you do this,” Reed said. They were children, his children, they had no place in a war!

“Reed, let them go!” his father insisted.

“I said stay out of this!”

“Reed it’s not them! It’s not them talking!”

Andy shifted his arm around Lauren’s shoulders and turned to meet Polaris and those with her. Reed reached for him. “No.”

A force slammed into his chest, knocking him back. The building shook around them. Lauren nudged Andy gently and whispered something. The shaking stopped.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. You’re our parents, we love you. Don’t try to stop us.”

They moved to join Polaris and her group, turning as they left. Caitlin cried out and went to follow. Eclipse grabbed her arm. “Don’t.”

His father reached towards Reed. “Are you hurt?”

“No. But I can’t just let them walk away like this, I can’t just-”

“It’s not them Reed. Let them go.”

“What do you mean it’s not them? You keep saying that, what do you mean?”

“It’s not Lauren and Andy anymore Reed; it’s not them talking. And they will hurt you if you try to stop them. Let them go.”

The door closed behind the figures wearing his children’s faces.


End file.
